As the value and use of information continues to increase, individuals and businesses seek additional ways to process and store information. One option available to users is information handling systems. An information handling system generally processes, compiles, stores, and/or communicates information or data for business, personal, or other purposes thereby allowing users to take advantage of the value of the information. Because technology and information handling needs and requirements vary between different users or applications, information handling systems may also vary regarding what information is handled, how the information is handled, how much information is processed, stored, or communicated, and how quickly and efficiently the information may be processed, stored, or communicated. The variations in information handling systems allow for information handling systems to be general or configured for a specific user or specific use such as financial transaction processing, airline reservations, enterprise data storage, or global communications. In addition, information handling systems may include a variety of hardware and software components that may be configured to process, store, and communicate information and may include one or more computer systems, data storage systems, and networking systems.
Even though many newer technologies are now available, serial ports (e.g., RS-232 ports using DB-9 connectors) remain a common and flexible method for establishing local bidirectional interaction from a debugging information handling system (e.g., a client system such as a laptop, phone, tablet, PDA etc.) to various subsystems of an information handling system (e.g., a server system). For example, information handling resources such as management controllers, machine control units (MCUs), programmable logic devices (PLDs) including complex programmable logic devices (CPLDs), field-programmable gate arrays (FPGAs) basic input/output systems (BIOSes), platform security processors, pre-boot environments, operating system (OSes), storage controllers, PCIe managers, etc. may be accessed in such a manner. Such access may be particularly advantageous for debugging problems that may arise with such information handling resources. Such access may further be useful during development, manufacturing, or at other times.
Traditional physical serial ports, however, are often available only in inconvenient locations at the back of servers. Usage of such physical serial ports has, due in part to the expense of serial concentrators and the existence of alternatives such as serial over LAN. Momentary use of such ports often requires being in the uncomfortable “hot aisle,” physical manipulation of cable management devices, a laptop USB to DB-9 dongle, and an old-fashioned serial cable. Further, some servers and other information handling systems may not even include a serial port.
A typical physical serial port on a server may be able to access only one serial stream, whereas it may be desirable to enable user selection from among many concurrent serial streams within different server subsystems.
To partially mitigate the drawbacks of using traditional serial ports, expensive onboard diagnostic LEDs are sometimes included in devices to diagnose lower-level undesired operation. Embodiments of this disclosure may provide access to low-level field service, manufacturing, and/or debugging capabilities without the need for such diagnostic LEDs. According to various embodiments, mobile devices (e.g., phones, tablets, laptops, etc.) or other information handling systems may be able to access various serial data streams without the need for a physical connection to a server serial port.
Some mobile devices such as phones or tablets are typically configured to run only one terminal emulator application at a time, and such a terminal emulator application may be configured to interact with only one serial stream at a time. Accordingly, some embodiments of this disclosure allow the use of a “break sequence” in a terminal program to select among the various available UART channels. Further, a terminal program on a more full-featured computer system such as a laptop may be configured to access a plurality of available serial streams concurrently.
According to various embodiments of this disclosure, many disadvantages of existing solutions may be mitigated or eliminated. For example, access to various information handling resources from the “cold aisle” of a server room may be possible in either a wired or a wireless fashion.
It should be noted that the discussion of any element as “background” or the like is not intended to create an admission of prior-art status as to that element. Unless clearly labeled as “prior art,” nothing in this disclosure is intended to create such an admission.